On the 23d of June the divisions of the Third Corps passed on towards the Potomac, followed by those of the First, the former crossing at Shepherdstown, the latter at Williamsport. The corps came together at Hagerstown, in Maryland, continued their march till the 27th, and rested two days at Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania. The cavalry under General Imboden, ordered on General Ewell’s left, was due as far north as McConnellsburg, but had halted at Hancock.
On the 28th, General Lee issued orders for the march upon Harrisburg. General Ewell had marched his main column through Chambersburg to Carlisle. His column, intending to move east of the mountains through Emmitsburg and Gettysburg, had marched parallel to the main column as far as Greenwood, when orders were renewed for it to march east through Gettysburg. General Early, commanding, ordered Gordon’s brigade and a detachment of cavalry through Gettysburg; but his other troops marched north through Mummasburg. The failure of the Imboden cavalry on his left caused General Ewell to send General George H. Steuart through McConnellsburg as guard of that flank. Steuart’s command rejoined him at Carlisle. As General Ewell marched he sent us three thousand head of beef cattle and information of five thousand barrels of flour. He halted at Carlisle on the 27th. The municipal authorities of Gettysburg and York surrendered to General Gordon, who took some prisoners of the State militia, and marched to the bridge over the Susquehanna at Wrightsville, where he had other prisoners, but the bridge was burned before him. His brigade returned to the vicinity of York, where the division had marched and bivouacked on the night of the 28th.
CHAPTER XXVI.
GETTYSBURG—FIRST DAY.
Information of Federal Force and Positions brought by the Scout Harrison—General Lee declines to credit it—General Longstreet suggests a Change of Direction in Conformance with the Revelation—General Meade had succeeded Hooker in Command Five Days before Battle—Positions on the Eve of the First Day—Confederate Cavalry “not in sight”—“The Eyes of the Army” sadly needed—A Description of the Famous Battle-field—Generals Ewell and A. P. Hill engage the Federals—Death of General John F. Reynolds—The Fight on Seminary Ridge—General Hancock in Federal Command on the Field—Concerning the Absent Cavalry and Information given by the Scout—Conditions at the Close of the First Day’s Fight.
The eve of the great battle was crowded with events. Movements for the concentration of the two vast armies went on in mighty force, but with a silence in strong contrast to the swift-coming commotion of their shock in conflict. It was the pent quiet of the gathering storm whose bursting was to shake the continent and suddenly command the startled attention of the world.
After due preparation for our march of the 29th, all hands turned in early for a good night’s rest. My mind had hardly turned away from the cares and labors of the day, when I was aroused by some one beating on the pole of my tent. It proved to be Assistant Inspector-General Fairfax. A young man had been arrested by our outlying pickets under suspicious circumstances. He was looking for General Longstreet’s head-quarters, but his comfortable apparel and well-to-do, though travel-stained, appearance caused doubt in the minds of the guards of his being a genuine Confederate who could be trusted about head-quarters. So he was sent up under a file of men to be identified. He proved to be Harrison, the valued scout. He had walked through the lines of the Union army during the night of the 27th and the 28th, secured a mount at dark of the latter day to get in as soon as possible, and brought information of the location of two corps of Federals at night of the 27th, and approximate positions of others. General Hooker had crossed the Potomac on the 25th and 26th of June. On the 27th he had posted two army corps at Frederick, and the scout reported another near them, and two others near South Mountain, as he escaped their lines a little after dark of the 28th. He was sent under care of Colonel Fairfax to make report of his information at general head-quarters. General Lee declined, however, to see him, though he asked Colonel Fairfax as to the information that he brought, and, on hearing it, expressed want of faith in reports of scouts, in which Fairfax generally agreed, but suggested that in this case the information was so near General Longstreet’s ideas of the probable movements of the enemy that he gave credit to it. I also sent up a note suggesting a change of direction of the head of our column east. This I thought to be the first and necessary step towards bringing the two armies to such concentration east as would enable us to find a way to draw the enemy into battle, in keeping with the general plan of campaign, and at the same time draw him off from the travel of our trains.
